MICHAEL T. FIGUEROA
NIU ART Education+design

Social Reconstructionism:
Building Today's Curriculum
Kerry Freedman (2003)
Teaching Visual Culture: Curriculum, Aesthetics, and the Social Life of Art.
Freedman, (p. 24, 2003) explains how aesthetics is a two-sided coin, “Aesthetics can promote feelings of righteousness, communicate vital messages, and illustrate excellence. And yet, they also remind us of our weaknesses”. That being said, aesthetics is your reaction to visual culture. Everyone could witness the same visuals and all have a different idea or feeling about what they see. Understanding that ideas and feelings will have different affects for each individual, or even culture. Freedman states, “As educators, we should continually hope for surprising crossings of aesthetic levels in the creation of knowledge, and for the unexpected outcome that surpasses planned objectives,” (p. 25). Knowing that as an art teacher we might be the first to expect different levels of aesthetics, but as educators we have the responsibility to educate our students with making connections with the proper associated knowledge. Freedman, (p. 32) also states that, “with sophisticated visual culture we see every day, and the knowledge we construct through our many overlapping and associative visual experiences, tells us that the aesthetic exist in many forms and is as interested as it is sublime”.